Close to Home (DI Adam Fawley #1)(38)

‘I just wanted to talk to her.’

‘Because you two were best friends – that’s what you told us, isn’t it?’

Portia seems to have realized where this is tending, because she just stares. Tears start to well in her eyes.

‘You see, Portia,’ says Everett gently, moving towards her, ‘we’ve been told you’d fallen out with Daisy. And when DC Baxter looked at the CCTV for the week before the party, we saw the two of you having a big argument – you hit her and pulled her hair and shouted at her. There’s no sound, but it’s easy to see what you were saying. You’re saying you hate Daisy and you wish she was dead.’

Portia hangs her head and the tears roll down her face. ‘She was mean to me. She said my dad didn’t think I was clever enough to be a doctor like him and being good at drawing wouldn’t get me anywhere – ’

‘Oh, darling,’ says Eleanor Dawson, reaching out and wiping the tears from her daughter’s cheek. ‘You mustn’t believe everything Daisy told you. She was always making things up.’

Portia is shaking her head. ‘But I know this was true because she sounded just like Daddy – she did his voice and everything – ’

Eleanor Dawson shoots an angry look at her husband, then crouches down and whispers, ‘It’s all right, Portia. No one thinks you did any harm to Daisy.’

Portia is still shaking her head. ‘But you don’t understand – I made one of those voodoo curse things like we saw in the museum and I stuck pins in it and wished she was dead, and now she is and it’s all my fault . . .’

Patrick Dawson steps firmly between Everett and his family. ‘I think that’s enough, Constable. You can see you’re distressing my daughter. And you can’t seriously suspect her of having anything to do with that child’s death. She’s only eight years old, for heaven’s sake.’

Everett looks at the sobbing girl and then back at her father. ‘We don’t yet know that Daisy Mason is dead, sir. And you might consider all this is just trivial playground squabbling, but children take that sort of stuff deadly seriously. As your daughter obviously did. And you’d be surprised what kids can be capable of, if pushed. Even if they are only eight.’

*

On my way to the station I find myself redirected by roadworks and realize I’m only five minutes from Port Meadow. I’m not sure quite why I do it, but I pull down the side road and park up near Walton Well, then get out and walk for a while. Ahead, the old village of Binsey is just visible amid the trees; behind me the towers of the city; to the north, much further away, a smudge of brown that marks Wolvercote. And to the right, closer than any of them, the roofs of Canal Manor, one or two windows catching the sun. Out on the meadow, the mist is still clinging in the hollows and the cattle are moving slowly through the tufts of grass, their ears flicking at unseen midges. And above it all, a huge sky billowed with pinkish clouds. I loved clouds as a kid. I knew all their names – mackerel skies, cirrus, cumulonimbus. We lived in such a shitty little suburb that I made my landscape from the one over my head – mountains and castles with ramparts and warring armies. I don’t think kids do that any more. They do that sort of thing on Xbox or Clash of Clans instead. No imagination required. I always hoped I could share my clouds with Jake, but he just wanted an Xbox too. Like his mates. Perhaps he was just too young.

And later, after we lost him, I used to come here to walk, pounding my grief into the dirt. An hour out, an hour back. The same monotonous grinding pace, day after day, month after month. Rain, snow, ice, fog. I remember suddenly that Sharon Mason used to run here too. Perhaps I saw her. Perhaps she even smiled at me. Perhaps all this was building, even then.

When I get to the station I realize the cost of my detour. I haven’t been able to get a proper coffee and have to resort to the machine in the corridor. I’m standing at it, trying to decide on the lesser of its various evils, when Gislingham comes slamming through the swing doors towards me. I can see at once that something’s happened.

‘It’s Sharon,’ he says, out of breath. ‘She wants to see you. I’ve put her in Interview Room Two.’

‘What’s it about?’

He shrugs. ‘No idea. You’re the only one she’ll speak to.’

‘And where’s Leo? Surely she didn’t leave him on his own in the house with that pack of vultures outside?’

‘Don’t worry, he’s with Mo Jones in the family room.’

‘Right, well, that’s something. Can you go back and sit with him until I finish with Sharon – ’

‘Me? Isn’t that what Mo’s for?’

‘Trust me, it’ll be the best fun you have all day – in fact, it’ll probably be the first time you’ve ever had an audience that actually enjoys listening to you crapping on about football. Find Quinn, can you, and get him to join me.’

*

BBC Midlands Today

Friday 22 July 2016 | Last updated at 11:56

Daisy Mason: Police question parents

The BBC has learned that Thames Valley Police are now questioning Barry and Sharon Mason, after they made an emotional TV appeal for the return of their daughter. Daisy Mason, 8, is believed to have been last seen at a party in the family’s garden on Tuesday night.

The BBC understands that police officers have also been questioning Daisy’s friends and teachers at Bishop Christopher’s primary school, where Daisy and her brother are pupils. They have also taken CCTV footage from the cameras outside the school gates.